Finnair is launching a new seasonal service to Sapporo, Japan this winter that will operate twice a week from December 15, 2019 until March 27, 2020.
The new non-stop service to Sapporo, Finnair’s fifth destination in Japan after Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka, will take around nine hours depending on the direction, according to the airline’s online schedule. This notably reduces travel time on the route by a minimum of three hours and cuts out the need for stopovers – mostly in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya – and transfers to flights operated by partner carrier Japan Airlines.
Describing Japan as a “key market” for the Finnish carrier, Christian Lesjack, senior vice president of network and resource management at Finnair, said: “Finnair is the only European airline to fly a scheduled route to Sapporo, and with five key Japanese cities in our network, we are now the largest European carrier flying to Japan.”
Flight AY065 will depart Helsinki on Thursdays and Sundays at 1705 and arrive in Sapporo at 0900 the following day, while the return AY066 leaves the Japanese city at 1135 on Mondays and Fridays before arriving back in the Finnish capital at 1410 the same day.
Finnair’s schedule shows that it will fly its Airbus A330-300 on the route rather than its newer A350-900, which operates a number of the carrier’s services to Asia-Pacific.
The A330 has two configurations offering either 32 or 45 seats in the business class cabin. The 45-seat configuration is split into two sections of 32 and 13 seats.